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Have you been intimidated into thinking that if you were to confess to believing that God created, you would be the odd one out, and the object of universal scorn and derision?

A Gallup poll conducted In May of 2012 found that in the United States forty-six percent of Americans hold the view that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God’s guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process. More broadly, some 78% of Americans today believe that God had a hand in the development of humans in some way, just slightly less than the percentage who felt this way 30 years ago http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx

I’M PROUD TO BE A WACKO

In the UK, my country of origin, it’s a commonly held view that too many Americans are “religious”, and that the US is the home of the Christian Fundamentalist wacko. It’s therefore not surprising to Brits that so many Americans are, in their view, “ignorant of the facts”, as represented in the Gallup poll. I’ll put it a different way: the United States as a whole has not abandoned its faith in the Biblical God while much of Europe has.

Despite all the determined efforts of evolutionists, atheists, the media and many in the education establishment to indoctrinate everyone into the ways of naturalism, many Americans have a lot more savvy and independence of thought when it comes to faith, and aren’t so easily swayed or brainwashed by those determined to get rid of the Christian God. On top of this, freedom-of-speech laws allow creationists and intelligent design ministries to thrive in the US, whereas in Western Europe there’s far more legal and political opposition to such ministries.

The common and caustic charge that creationists are ignorant and stupid is just a smoke screen-an obfuscation (my new favorite word) designed to hide the facts. While they’re fewer in number (because there’s resistance to their hiring and because they don’t get massive government funding and secular media backing as the priests of Darwin do) creationists are in many cases at least as well educated, credentialed and informed as evolutionists. It’s a matter of world-view, not one of who’s most intelligent.

Neither does a majority of scientists in a position of influence prove right: it only helps to dictate who will have the upper hand in public exposure and debate. Ultimately one with God is a majority. The earth belongs to God and not to his deniers, who are, after all, only tenants.

There’s a culture war going on: a spiritual battle for individual hearts and minds. It seems sometimes like the “nays” have it when it comes to God and creation, and that’s intimidating to many people. But those of us who’ve chosen to follow the clear evidence in nature, in scripture, and in empirical science (rather than philosophy without evidence posing as science) see it God’s way. We recognize that Jesus Christ said:

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13,14 ESV).

Looking into the amazing blue sky today, with its white and light-grey cumulus suspended all around, a truth struck me for the first time: there’s a purpose for everything in nature…

Butterflies and bees pollinate; birds spread seed over the land; rock keeps us…on the surface…and clouds transport water. Bacteria and enzymes break things down; worms and insects aerate and irrigate the soil; electro-magnetism transports photons enabling us to live and to see our world in all its incredible glory, and gravity stops us all from floating away.

The moon keeps our oceans, and so us, alive. Our very own star provides energy for the growth of plants, which feed us and expel as a by-product…oxygen. And so it goes on, endlessly.

I’ll confess I’m not an authority on churchy affairs, but perhaps that’s a good thing. Perhaps it’s time political correctness within the church faced a little more opposition from those who aren’t under its power…

I’ve no doubt that many or most church ministers are working hard and doing their best for their congregations and for their God. But my experience and my observation of today’s church world, overall, is that the flock is not being prepared for what it already faces, or for what may be coming…

We don’t have to go any further than our television or our web-based news feeds to see the direction our world is heading in. Here in the US we’re becoming more and more polarized as the haters crawl out of the closet and make their intentions clear. Our culture is being torn because those who are most intent on changing it have the power of most of the media on their side.

POLITICS AND RELIGION

Of those who take a Biblical view of culture and politics in the Church how many are talking about it? Alright, we don’t have to side openly with either major political party, but we absolutely should be discussing the issues, because they affect all of us and all our children. We don’t live in a theocracy or a church state, and I wouldn’t want to. But we all, in a so-called “democracy” or “republic” or “democratic republic” have a right and a duty to shape it, rather than just handing it over to those who want to tear down all the principles our Creator created us to live by, and even the obvious principles of nature itself.

SEX

Another but not unrelated subject is sex and romance. Without these none of us would be here, right? But how many churches and their ministers discuss the hows and the whys of love: the principles God expects us to live by? How many discuss that stuff which the Bible calls “sin”? “Sin” is such a little word, but it’s so profoundly important. How many young people are being told what sin is and what its consequences are? How many are being told that the things now being forced onto the Western world regarding morality and sexuality are enough to bring eternal consequences?

…those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21 NIV).

ORIGINS

Some in the Church regard the subject of our origins as being insignificant. Where we came from isn’t important, they say. What did Jesus say about origins? He said:

If you believed Moses, you would believe me…but if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? (John 5:46).

The writing of Moses, and the prophets, and the apostles, all speak of our creation: not our evolution. We’re made by God in the image of God, not by chance, random mutations and billions of years of time in the image of a lemur or an ape-like creature. Calling into question our creation is calling into question our salvation from sin, and our eternal destiny. If all the writers are wrong about creation, so are they wrong about salvation.

Our kids are being taught that they evolved from soup. The church which is not working to correct this view is not, I repeat not, caring for its flock.

WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

I believe in the rapture of the Church. However, what many ministers in churches and on the radio and internet are teaching is that before all that’s foretold in Revelation and elsewhere occurs we’re all going to be taken to heaven…

Armageddon-out-of-here..!

Why did our God go to so much trouble to foretell last days events if we aren’t going to see them or experience them? Why do so many prophecy “experts” make a living at what they do if all the time we’re going to disappear before it all happens? Why are so many in the Church sticking their heads in the sands of rapture, when half way across the world many of their believing brothers and sisters are already being martyred for their faith? We are not all going to escape what is to come. We are not all going to get out of here, without some very serious opposition first. So why are the churches passing out buckets full of sand when they should be equipping the saints for what may come and for what has already come in many parts of the world?

FELLOWSHIP AND WORSHIP

One powerful way to prepare the Church for what it has to deal with and for what it may have to face is through fellowship and worship. Sadly, I see very little. I see cliques and little groups who like each other and turn their noses up at the rest. I see very few Bible studies where the Bible is studied and where it’s not just another opportunity for someone to give a sermon rather than openly discuss Scripture in relation to today’s world. And I see a kind of worship where if you don’t like or accept a very specific genre of music, i.e. Christian “contemporary” music-an innocuous and generic form of pop-you’re out of luck and probably out of any possibility of fellowship.

APOLOGIES

We all get bombarded with lies from every direction. And who did Jesus say was the father of all lies? The devil.

Our history is being revised and scrubbed out by our education establishments and our media. Our “news” feeds are not giving us news at all any more but propaganda, gossip, slander and fakery. Our schools and universities are teaching that we all evolved out of nothing, that there’s no truth to Christian “myths”, and that the Christian Church is the cause of all that’s wrong in the world. Our entertainment world is stuffing gross immorality and extreme violence down our throats, sometimes dressed in special effects, and always with attractive people, to get our attention. Our politicians are (generally) out of touch with reality, with their own voters, and with any sense of Godly wisdom, and our judges are making laws and ignoring others to suit their own agendas.

So how is the Church countering all the lies and deceit we all face every day? I’ll rephrase that last question. Is the Church countering all the lies and deceit?

I scanned the weather forecasts a couple of weekends ago in desperation, praying that the below-freezing winds passing straight through my body as I worked outside would soon abate…

Sure enough, temperatures, said the official forecasts, were going to rise daily over the next week until pleasantly mild. However, the cold remained locked in throughout the week. The forecast was wrong. I know I’m not the only one to ask this, but how can “experts” predict what our climate will like be in thirty years, if they can’t always predict the weather correctly for the next few days?

Climate change? Hasn’t the climate always “changed”? Isn’t that the history of earth? Why do I read about ice ages? Why do I read about fossilized palm leaves and camel and rhino remains in northern latitudes, where there is now permafrost and polar bears? Why were there farms in Greenland a thousand years ago where there is now ice, if climate change and global warming are brought on by human industry? And why have the dire predictions of our time made a couple of decades ago come to nothing? Why did warnings of “global warming” morph into “climate change”?

More to the point, why did the previous US administration want to cede large amounts of money and sovereignty to international organizations: to “global governance”?

I’ve recently observed several more challenges to the hysteria still being encouraged in many circles. In the first of three examples, 49 former NASA scientists dispute man-made climate change. Follow this link to the details:

Secondly, I read Roy Spencer’s recent book* in which he reviews Al Gore’s sequel movie “Truth to Power”. Among Spencer’s accomplishments is his work as a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA. He was principal observer on missions to observe the Earth from the Space-Shuttle. Spencer, in his conclusions, writes:

Most if not all of the weather events Al Gore presents…occur naturally anyway, and we have good evidence that they have happened in the past…

…none of it has evidence that humans are making it worse…

In some cases, Gore’s claims…can be shown to be outright false.

Finally, a physics professor who taught at Columbia and Princeton expresses in this video his understanding that it’s impossible to predict the climate years in advance:

What would you think if you saw seven skinny cows eat seven fat cows? You might wonder if you’re next on the menu. Or perhaps you’d think you were dreaming…

Most people who were raised in a church or who are believers know the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Jo was the young lad who started off as the black sheep of the family (cows…sheep…make up your mind eh?). One of the things Joseph is famous for is the interpretation of Pharaoh’s bad dream. Pharaoh saw in his dream seven fat healthy cows, then seven ugly looking thin cows. The seven lean cows devoured the fat ones. Jo’s correct interpretation was that the seven fat cows foretold seven years of plenty and prosperity, while the seven lean represented the seven harsh, terrible years which followed. I know the word “fat” has all but been banished from our vocabulary, but I always was a bit of a rebel.

It may seem like quite a stretch for me to associate Pharaoh’s dream with today’s political and social scene, but I’m going to do it anyway. Weren’t Pharaoh and Joseph politicians, of a sort?
Depending on which side of the political divide you see yourself on today, and from where you get your “news”, you may associate Mr Trump more with the tyrannical slave-driving Pharaoh, or instead with Joseph the deliverer. I confess shamelessly to being in the latter camp, being very mindful that Trump is only human, and that he’s provided the world a very temporary and limited respite.

It’s God who “removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21) The leaders we have are there either because we get what we deserve or ask for foolishly, or because our Creator is attempting to show us mercy and sense. Unfortunately the respite is so temporary it can be no more than another seven years long. And now some of you know where I’m going with this post…
Respite, some of you ask? Respite from what? I’ll spell it out.
The US, and with it the entire Western world, has been running headlong down a road of globalism and open borders, and particularly open to people of a certain religion whose stated goal is to subject the world to its prophet. It’s also been moving us all towards a system in which personal freedom is to be diminished for the “common good”; the tiny nation of Israel is to be exposed to its enemies; anti-Christian bias and harassment in the nations founded by Christians is to be institutionalized, and a brand of morality and political correctness which wishes to turn the world upside down is to be imposed on us by re-education and modern-day thought police. Evil is called good and good evil. Truth with a capital “T” is being thrown to the ground.

In this Satanic, insane attack on the fundamentals of our Creator’s standards, we would, or will have to stop calling boys “boys” and girls “girls”, because the social engineers of our time wish to deny the blatantly obvious of human physique, DNA, emotional and hormonal make-up; to emasculate and denigrate men and masculinity, and to impose belligerent, angry women as kings (ahem…queens) of the castle. All of which doesn’t make sense, because if we’re born gender-less as some now want us to believe, how can women be even identified, let alone discriminated against or promoted? Surely the term “woman” is now redundant? Cannot a man now call himself a woman and so receive politically motivated promotion, or does hypocrisy reign in this situation also? Where is the logic in all of this?

All of the above conditions are warnings and hallmarks of a culture ripe for judgment. In fact, they are Biblical signs of the end-times.
The world has been getting rapidly sicker under a runaway subduction and subversion of our culture and our sanity. And I’m not naive enough to think that Trump alone can hold back the tide. But at least the flow has been slowed, to the absolutely manic anger of Trump’s opponents, who, having worked to force “tolerance” upon us for decades, now pour out hatred and intolerance for him and his supporters without measure.

Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us (Psalm 2:1 KJV 2000).

And so to the seven “lean” years.
While I’m certain that watching for the signs of judgment is Biblical (Luke 21:35-36) I’m aware of the many mistakes made by some “experts” in the subject, and I’m not one to set dates. I’m not making a prophecy, and I’m not about to say that the “seven-year Tribulation” (even given that all of the seven years really do remain to be enacted) will begin the moment Mr Trump leaves office. But given the depth of determination on the other side of the political and moral spectrum, and the success with which they’ve already removed constraints and the will to reason from the minds of many people, I can’t help thinking that after Trump the Western world will immediately resume its headlong gallop towards that mythical utopia, which dangles in front of the eyes of the hopeful like some juicy carrot on a stick in front of a donkey.